Â£80.00

Keeler, Ruby original photo by Bert Longworth SOLD

SOLD

Ruby Keeler

A b/w 8'x10' original photo by Bert Longworth (stamped to reverse) of Warner Bros. and First National.

Between 1928 and 1939, Bert “Buddy" Longworth took the bulk of the celebrated stills for the production numbers of the kaleidoscopic Warner Bros. musicals ("Forty-second Street", 1933;"Gold Digger",1933;etc.). He had started out in 1910 with his own portrait gallery in Detroit and had established the first postcard photo service in America before becoming a news photographer for the Chicago Tribune. Longworth joined Universal Pictures in 1921, where he shot stills for the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1923) and "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925), among other films.

At MGM Longworth shot stills for Garbo's first films. These pictures--including Garbo and Gilbert locked in embrace from "Flesh and the Devil" (1926)--are some of the most instantly recognizable images from silent films and became the most frequently reproduced stills in that era. In 1937 Longworth published a private edition of his photographs entitled "Hold Still Hollywood."

Bert Longworth—Hollywood’s foremost expressionist, often using unusual perspective, occasional use of multiple exposures. Contemporary with Shalitt at Paramount. (MASTERS WHO SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED & COLLECTED)